Busyknitter

Sometimes it’s when the little things happen that the reality of autism smacks me in the teeth.

It’s half-term, hubby and older son are away for a couple of days and I’m at home with the little fella. This morning it absolutely pissed it down. Cleared up a bit in the afternoon, so I thought let’s go out and get some fresh air. We’ll don raincoats and wellies and splash a few puddles into oblivion. What red blooded 3-year old could fail to be pleased with that suggestion?

T was very happy to put his nice new wellies with the Simpsons motif on and stalked proudly round the house in them. Then we went out, walked for about a mile and d’ye know what? He just didn’t get it. Not one bit. I suggested jumping in puddles. I showed him how to jump in puddles. Carefully, quite deliberately he walked over or around every single one, holding onto my hand for dear life all the while.

In a desperate attempt to bring order to at least one area of our chaotic lives, we have recently organised our CDs and DVDs. The CDs are all now neatly arranged alphabetically by composer or artist, the DVDs by title.

Which has created some rather curious bedfellows:

-Lou Reed is sandwiched between Rachmaninov and Rimsky-Korsakov
-Tom Waits between Wagner and Walton
-Chopin leads onto The Clash
-Dvorak is next to Bob Dylan.

Wonder what they would all think of each other?

“Down in the barn where the oil lamp flickers. I lost my heart and she lost her parasol”

“The prime minister held a meeting with the cabinet today. He also spoke to the bookcase and argued with the chest of drawers.”

“There was a strange happening during a performance of Elgar’s Sea Pictures at a concert hall in Bermuda tonight, when the man playing the triangle disappeared.”

“Have you heard the one about the retired general who said he had not had sex since 1956? His friend said, ‘That’s a long time ago.’ ‘I don’t know,’ the general replied. ‘It’s only 20.27 now.”

True genius.

Well, my back got a bit better over the week, but by Friday progress had decidedly stalled. My job doesn’t help, as sitting at a desk all day really isn’t back-friendly. I’m not very good at being ill , so by the weekend I was getting decidedly anxious, weepy and really quite a pain in the ass to live with.

Come Sunday evening and Mr BK had had enough. I was ordered not to go to work in the morning, to see my GP and to go and find somewhere to relax for the day. Some dear friends came up trumps and gave me the keys to their house. I still had to ferry older son to his fracture clinic appointment in the morning, but I phoned in sick (for the first time in years and years I hasten to add) and in the afternoon I spent a few hours doing something that I haven’t really done for a very long time. Nothing.

It was wonderful. I strapped a couple of hot water bottles to my back and neck, lay down on the floor in a nest of blankets and spent the afternoon watching Pride and Prejudice on DVD. There wasn’t enough time to see the whole thing but I will admit to fast forwarding at one point to ensure I got to see Colin Firth swimming through the lake before my GP appointment.

Now the GP told me that what I actually need to do is keep the muscles moving. So it’s back to work tomorrow, but I can’t spend hours on the computer, so I’ll just have to cruise aroung the building catching up on all the the latest gossip. And fit in a lunchtime swim.